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10 THE GRAY AND THE BLUE IN PRAYER AND SONG By General Clement A. Evans I earnestly invite the assistance of the surviving chaplains .and soldiers of both armies to furnish The Golden Age with incidents and other informa tion through which the people of our country may learn that the religious life of the men who offered up themselves in battle was not neglected. The subject, by its very nature, is exhaustible. Within a year the story can be told. Soldiers who w T ere witnesses are passing away. I beg that this call for assistance may be heeded in the spirit in which it is given. Clement A. Evans. The Gray in 1906. The South is well satisfied with the sound patri otism of its old ideas, with the purity of its senti ment, with the general course of its record, and with its heroes living and dead. It is also as well sat isfied with the Union, the Constitution, the flag, the army and navy, and with the present power and glory of our country. The attempt to reconcile the South is a waste of philanthropy. It reconciled itself nearly forty years ago with very little help, and now hails all reciprocal reconciliation, let it come as it will. The Southern people of these Uniteed States are quickly and warmly responsive to generous con sideration. They appreciate the national demon stration of regard for General Wheeler. Their hearts responded warmly when their old captured battle flags were restored to the States. They are deeply affected by the purpose of the Government to care for the Confederate soldiers’ graves. They appreciate the giving of facilities for completing the rosters of Confederate armies. They welcome heartily the present investigation of the needs of their rivers and harbors; they have manifested with enthusiastic Southern cordiality their delight at the visits of the Presidents of their country; they expect increasing sympathy of their country men for them in dealing with their peculiar local problems, and they participate in every demonstra tion that can secure by strong fraternal pressure that solidarity of the people of the United States which will leave no line or plane of cleavage any where. The South recognizes its share of responsibility for the good government of the Union. It was never so much in earnest in efforts as now to have “a perfect Union, to establish justice, insure do mestic tranquility, provide for the common de fense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our pos terity.” The South would have the entire land to be all South from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, all North from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, and all the States and Territories to be one rich realm of liberty, fraternity and equal pros perity from ocean to ocean. Rest, Comrades, Rest! Rest, comrades, rest! Crowned -with wreaths of roses, While quiet sleep Each weary eyelid closes! Slumb’ring in your tents ye lie, While the tumult passes by, Heeding not the years that sweep O’er your silent, peaceful sleep. Though we call, ye answer not— Life with all its cares forgot. Rest, comrades, rest, Crowned with wreaths of roses. Rest, comrades, rest, Crowned with wreaths of roses, While quiet sleep Each weary eyelid closes! Will ye hear the songs we sing, Wear the garlands that we bring? The Golden Age for April 19, 1906. Shall no word of praise or blame Reach and stir your hearts again? Still we call, but, cares forgot, Ye slumber on and answer not. Rest, comrades, rest, Crowned with wreaths of roses! Memorial Day. “The dead need no tribute, but the living owe it to themselves and to posterity to show their ap preciation of true manhood, lofty honor and exalt ed bravery and patriotism. But for this duty we might leave the dead alone. They have no longer any need for our eulogies, and wfliether we honor them or not, they will have their reward. Unhon ored though they be now, sometimes in the provi dence of God and somewhere in the universe, they will meet with that recompense due to unselfish de votion and self-sacrifice.” Oh, Lay Me Away with the Boys in Gray When my warfare is o’er and my toiling done, And your lonely watch you keep, When your tender eyes are filled with tears, As in death I peacefully sleep, When your tender eyes are filled with tears, As in death I peacefully sleep— CHORUS. Oh. lay me away with the boys in gray, With the comrades I love so well; For there’s no sacred place on earth’s green space Like the graves where these heroes dwell. I ask no heaven-piercing spire or shaft To mark the narrow burial plot. Where dear ones come when flowers bloom, To deck with love the quiet spot— Wheie dear ones come when flowers bloom, To deck with love the quiet spot— CHORUS: But lay me away, etc. Give me a place in mem’ry’s dearest hours, When the lost steal through your heart; My name may start the crystal fount again And join our souls, though far apart; My name may stait the crystal fount again And join our souls, though far apart— CHORUS: But lay me away, etc. Tread Lightly, Ye Comrades! Tread lightly, ye comrades, his lone grave around— Those ashes are sacred and sacred the ground; ’Tis one of earth’s noble, so gallant and brave, That here lies asleep in the volunteer’s grave. He’s fought his last battle, the vict’ry he’s won, And now the brave soldier is resting alone. His young life was given his country to save, And low here he lies, in the volunteer’s grave. CHORUS. Disturb not, disturb not his rest, calm and deep; The last trumpet, only, shall wake him from sleep. Tribute of Senator Hoar of Massachu setts to Southern People. “Now, my friends, having said what I thought of to say on this question, perhaps I may be in dulged in adding that, although my life, political ly and personally, has been a life of almost con stant strife with the leaders of the southern peo ple, yet as I grow older I have learned not only to respect and esteem, but to love the great qualities which belong to my fellow-citizens of the Southern States. They are a noble race! Their love of home, their chivalrous respect for women, their courage, their delicate sense of honor, their constancy which can abide by an opinion or a purpose or an interest for their states through adversity and through are things by which’ the people of the more mercurial north may take a lesson. And there is another thing—covetousness, cor ruption, the low temptation of money have not yet found any place in our southern politics.” Why Not? There recently appeared in a magazine a clever suggestion of a silent system in society, being a plan of more or less benevolence not to introduce people in your house, but let them find each other out. This would have its charm. None of us are born acquainted, none of us wish acquaintance thrust upon us; in this as in some other things, middle ground is best. Left to acquire our friends by natural selection what delightful people not to know we could avoid! The perennial bore! Who knows him not afar off? And the people who appeal to us at sight. Instead of a tiresome wait on convention we could walk up and say, “I like the look of you. Will you let me know you bet ter?” Should he decline—an improbability—it would be no worse than the plan which now ob tains in polite society. Then, too, this habit of direct address would encourage and foster a spirit of frankness every where and in every relation of life. If Mrs. Next Street called when Mrs. Busy Day could not pos sibly appear the maid would say at the door, “my mistress says she regrets it very much but must deny herself the pleasure of seeing you, as she is helping take down the stove pipe. She will return your call promptly and recover the lost enjoyment.” Would not this be more amiable and easier to be lieve than “not at home” when you have just seen the flutter of a familiar skirt across the back hall, or overheard hurriedly whispered instructions? We are told that polite fabrication is necessary to oil the wheel of social life, and doubtless it does serve the purpose in our present pur-blind conviction that truth is the most dangerous thing to handle. If we were more familiar with its pristine clear ness we’d see it wears not so fearful a mien, but is to be trusted, not to bridge over a social chasm, but to fill it to the level and make solid ground. In that golden time when all shall speak the truth from the least to the greatest no broken hearts and ruined homes will mark the path of the scandal-monger; no heart-burning with the racking thought, “I wonder what she meant by that?” will be left by the innuendo; for being honest and knowing others to be we can take all we hear and say at par, and not waste precious nerve force try ing to read into things what we’d have them Inean, or to read out what hurts and displeases. But we anticipate. All this comes in the millennial. NORA SANDERS. News of General Interest. Alexander Lange Kleland, the popular Norwe gian poet and author, is dead of paralysis of the heart. He was born in 1849. Thursday morning, April 12, the cornerstone of the main building of the Baptist Orphanage at Hapeville, now in course of erection, was laid. The house passed the national quarantine bill by an overwhelming vote. The bill carries with it an appropriation of $500,000 for begining an imme diate campaign against yellow fever. Colonel Thomas Jackson, of Montgomery county, one of the few surviving members of the Confeder ate Congress, is dead, at the age of 96. 1 he Georgia State President of the Daughters of the Confederacy has issued a stirring appeal for assistance in the work of building a monument to the memory of Captain Wirz, the commander of Andersonville prison, who was unjustly executed under charges trumped up against him by his op ponents. It is pointed out that something should be done in conspicuous refutation of the allegations to the effect that Captain Wirz treated the Federal prisoners in his keeping with cruelty,